Newly-formed local band Horses and Bayonets are taking an interactive approach to creating their album by using crowd funding and that's just one piece to this puzzle.
"Our producer just doesn't let us go into the studio," vocalist Bryce Lokken explained. "We have to record every track at home and then he critiques it, then we have to re-record it until he's happy with it and then we go down south to record it. So every song is recorded three or four times before we even make it into the studio. But we know that's why Chris Holmes (originally from Prince George, now in Vancouver) makes such good records -- because he cares. We're really, really excited!"
Their first day in studio is March 9.
Lokken spent a year in Vancouver, going to school and working for a marketing firm, a position he's seeking here. When he returned to Prince George in September, he started writing songs and gathered together the band by November, including Landon Hilde on drums, Devon Meyer on guitar, Jake Olexyn on guitar, and Alex Chin on bass.
Gathering the band was the easy part.
"That's why we're doing this campaign, because getting to that next level is almost impossible," said Lokken. "We've never made money playing a show and we never expect to in Prince George. The music scene here is where people are working really hard to keep it together and the money that goes to shows is for the out-of-town talent so they can eat that night, which we really care about, so that's why we got hold of a big producer because we wanted to do this right."
The band will make the album, get a van to go on tour with and see what happens, Lokken added.
"We looked to crowd sourcing and crowd funding because we do have people in our lives that want to support us and at the same time we are grown men and we never want to ask for money," said Lokken. "We are at the stage in life where - do we want to give all the money we have to do this or do I want to put gas in my car to go to work? So we decided to offer really cool incentives for donations."
There are 10 incentives that start at donating a toonie for an air smooch, $10, $25, $50 donations and then it gets interesting.
"For $60 I will come to your house and do chores for you in a Speedo," Lokken deadpanned. He's not kidding. "There's music lessons for $70 as we've all taught music. We really want people to take us up on this so for $100 donation you will get the album and we'll do charitable work in your name for an hour. I can't imagine a better way for the band to bond than walking dogs at the SPCA. And for a $500 donation we will get a tattoo of your name. Every one of us is fighting for that one - we're not saying 'you do it, no you do it'. We're like 'no, I want it -- no, I want to do it'."
Horses and Bayonets wants to give back to the fans, while making individual sacrifices themselves. One fashion-forward band member is giving up buying new clothes, another is giving up expanding his video game library to the tune of about $400 a month. Each musician will take the money they would have spent on the un-necessities of life and put it toward the $5,000 it will take to make the album. The campaign's goal is $2,000.
"I work 50 hours a week, plus I teach music and every band member pulls overtime just to pay the bills and even then we still wanted to offer incentives for the donations because we don't deserve handouts -- we want to earn it," said Lokken.
To find out more about the incentives visit http://www.indiegogo.com/habmusic. To find out more about Horses and Bayonets visit facebook.com/habmusic.
